Oh, Starfield. Since the release of—and lukewarm response to—the Shattered Space expansion almost a full year ago, Bethesda’s been very quiet about what it’s got planned for the game that was once anticipated enough to send Baldur’s Gate 3 scurrying for cover. In fairness, the studio’s had other irons in the fire, most notably the much-better-received Oblivion remaster that hit earlier this year.
But let’s be real, it’s hard not to feel that Bethesda would be making a lot more noise about Starfield if it had gone down better with fans, and those holdouts who still inhabit its subreddit and other community spots are gradually losing hope as the company steadfastly says barely anything about the game’s roadmap.
Well take heart, true believers, because someone has remembered the game exists. In a recent chat with dev Tim Lamb on Bethesda’s own YouTube channel, it was confirmed that, yep, there is something cooking for Starfield in the relatively near future. “I’m really excited for players to see what the team’s been working on,” said Lamb. “We have some cool stuff coming, including free updates and features that players have been asking for, as well as a new DLC story.”
And here are all the glorious details: just kidding. No details for you. All we get from the enthusiastic Lamb is a comment that “part of the team has been focused on space gameplay to make the travels there more rewarding. We’re also adding some new game systems and a few other smaller delights.” Also, there’s new stuff in the pipe from Bethesda’s cadre of “verified creators”—its stable of modders that market their wares in the Creation Club.
Luckily, I’m something of an ace detective (I sometimes check Reddit and also read the website I work for), which means I might be able to add a little more context to this tease for you. Back at the start of this month, enterprising dataminers uncovered evidence of a yet-to-be-implemented “cruise” mode tucked into the game’s files.
(Image credit: Bethesda)
To my eye, it looked a lot like the kind of system you can find in Elite: Dangerous—the way the dataminers described it made it sound like you’d be able to cruise from planet to planet within a system, but not between systems. Also, unlike Elite, you wouldn’t be able to pop to and from a planet’s surface without a load screen.
All of which is pure speculation, of course, and it’s worth noting that a lot of this uncovered code was subsequently yoinked from the game’s files by Bethesda. But it would line up with Lamb’s teases, and it would answer one of the loudest complaints that players have about Starfield’s rendition of space: that its sense of exploration was curtailed by everything being separated by a loading screen.
So fingers crossed, I suppose. Still, I have to say that even if it does turn out that Lamb’s teases turn out to match the dataminer speculation, it’s worth noting just how this news was delivered. A glitzy showcase? A big trailer at whatever Geoff Keighley event is currently ongoing? No. It was tucked into minute five of a six-minute dev interview video that didn’t even mention Starfield in the title. If this game has plans to become the thing players hoped it would be, it’s sure got a long way to climb.
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